


Weary Eyed

by thecoldlightofday



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 06:44:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecoldlightofday/pseuds/thecoldlightofday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Request "Shane and Carl. Maybe Rick and Lori are fighting and he’s all like ~*~why~*~ to Shane."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weary Eyed

It was a few minutes past nine and Shane was getting ready for a date, drinks with some girl that had slipped him her number a few nights earlier, when his doorbell rang, chiming cheerfully while he ran a comb through his hair. He headed out to answer the door, thinking maybe it was the single mother he was banging from across the street come by for a quickie before her sitter had to go home for the night. Rather than the thick little bombshell he was expecting, there was Carl, arms dangling at his sides.

“Carl?” He tried to remember if Rick and Lori had asked him to sit tonight. He craned his head around to look out into the driveway but couldn’t see either Rick or Lori’s car. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

Carl shook his head, though the answer was obvious. Kid was wearing just his flannel pajamas and a t-shirt, nothing but some ratty slippers on his feet. His cheeks were red and he shivered minutely. He hadn’t even brought a jacket to cut the cold. “Man what the hell were you thinking sneaking out on your own? You have any idea what could have happened? You coulda been hit by a car or something, shit.” He sounded angrier than he intended. He’d never even so much as been stern with Carl before. The things going through his head, however, were scary, images of Carl mangled like the bodies he and Rick had to seen in a dozen hit and runs, bones splintered and poking through bloodied skin. He loved Carl, had for as long as Carl had been living, since he got to be the third person in the world to hold Carl in his arms. He couldn’t help but he upset, more worried though than anything, that Carl would put himself in harm’s way. “Get in here,” he ordered, pulling Carl inside by his shirt. “Christ, what you think your folks are gonna say about this?”

He immediately started dialing Rick and Lori. They had to be panicked and if they weren’t now they were going to be as soon as they went in to check on Carl and he wasn’t in his bed.

“They’re fighting again,” Carl said quietly in a voice that made Shane put down the phone.

“Hey now,” he said, feeling the anger in him die down to nothing. “Your mom and dad, they’re just going through some stuff.”

Carl frowned. It was enough to let Shane know he didn’t believe a word he’d said.

“Can I spend the night?” Carl asked him, using that look he’d inherited from his father, all soft-eyed and pathetic—a look that had always, since it’s conception, been tailored to trick Shane into saying yes.

“Of course you can,” he sighed. He led Carl into the kitchen.

“Are you going somewhere?” Carl gave him a once over, eyeing his almost-formal pants and blue-button up shirt.

“Me?” He spread his arms out wide. “Naw. Who else but you and your old man would wanna hang out with me?” As he got Carl a mug out of the cupboard, he decided that leggy waitress Tanya down at the bar was going to have to wait.

Carl, placated by that answer, sat down at Shane’s kitchen table. He was silent while Shane fixed a snack.

“Do you think they still love each other?” Carl fiddled with his sandwich, peeling the crusts off with his fingers before he took a bite. He chewed slowly. He washed down every swallow with a drink of milk.

It felt like walking into a trap. There was no good answer; no wrong one either. He couldn’t lie to Carl, didn’t even know how to not tell that little boy the truth.

“I know they do. Your dad loves you and your mom more than anything.”

Carl sniffled, lump of sandwich frozen in his mouth. He watched Carl chew and chew until he finally spit it out. “Can you talk to my dad tomorrow just in case?”

“I can do that.” He picked Carl’s plate off the table. “Go on now, it’s past your bedtime and you got school tomorrow. Gonna have to wake up early so I can get you home.”

Carl nodded and the tension had gone out of him some, little shoulders no longer worked so tightly. He didn’t look like he was stretching himself so thin, worried about things he shouldn’t be, his parents’ problems spilling over and making sick. He stretched out on Shane’s couch sleepily, already half passed out when Shane draped a blanket over him. Shane put a hand on Carl’s forehead to check for a chill or fever he might have gotten from the walk over. Carl was warm, though no more than normal. He nuzzled his head a little into Shane’s hand. Satisfied that Carl was neither ill nor dying, safe and sound for the moment, he tiptoed into the kitchen, looked back once more to be sure Carl was really down for the count, and dialed Rick.


End file.
